Midway through extra time in the soccer World Cup final Zinedine Zidane rose majestically to head the goal designed to claim the trophy for France.
Instead the consistently excellent Italian keeper Gianluigi Buffon arched high to tip the ball one-handed over the bar and preserve the 1-1 scoreline.
What subsequently passed through Zidane’s mind in the dying moments of a career that had taken him from the backstreets of Marseille to the glamorous European club giants Juventus and Real Madrid?
Confounding the pessimists, he had gradually recaptured the form which propelled France to their 1998 World Cup triumph. But after Buffon’s save he must have known his final chance of glory on the game’s ultimate stage had all but vanished.
Certainly something snapped 10 minutes before the final whistle at the Berlin Olympic stadium. After a brief altercation the French captain suddenly head-butted Marco Materazzi in the chest and was sent from the field. His demoralised team then succumbed 5-3 in the penalty shootout.
Zidane’s abrupt fall from grace mirrored the light and shade of a troubled sporting year.
Italy’s path to their fourth World Cup took place against the backdrop of a match-fixing scandal unfolding in the Italian courts.
When the Italian season opened two weeks late, Juventus had been relegated to Serie B for the first time in their history on minus 17 points — a penalty later reduced to minus nine.
Fiorentina, Lazio and Reggina were permitted to stay in the top division with heavy points penalties while AC Milan were docked eight points but allowed to remain in the Champions League.
Winter extravaganza
Turin staged the first of the year’s two global events, the extravaganza on snow and ice constituting the Winter Olympics.
Austria, who won a record 14 Alpine skiing medals, dominated. Michaela Dorfmeister finally struck gold with victories in the women’s downhill and super-G in her final Olympics. Benjamin Raich won the giant slalom and led an Austrian clean sweep in the slalom.
Norwegian Kjetil Andre Aamodt, who had overcome a broken ankle and ligament damage, became the first Alpine skier to win four Olympic golds with victory in the super-G at the age of 34. Half an hour later Croatian Janica Kostelic, who had endured nearly a dozen knee operations, matched Aamodt’s feat with her fourth career gold in the combined.
At the closing ceremony, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge pledged to pursue the war against doping with unrelenting vigour. Judged by the events of 2006 it is a fight with no end in sight.
In July it was announced that Tour de France winner Floyd Landis and Olympic 100m champion Justin Gatlin had tested positive for the male sex hormone testosterone.
Landis’s failed test followed an astonishing win in the 17th stage after the American had apparently dropped out of contention on the previous day.
The Tour had already lost what little credibility it still retained when the 1997 winner Jan Ullrich and Giro d’Italia champion Ivan Basso were withdrawn by their teams as a result of a Spanish doping investigation.
Because of Gatlin’s positive test, track fans have been denied the showdowns they craved against Jamaican Asafa Powell, who equalled his own 100m world record twice this year.
Doping even sullied cricket, a sport where beer is the traditional drug of choice. Pakistan pace bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif tested positive for the steroid nandrolone and their trouble-prone side became the first team to forfeit a Test match when they refused to take the field against England after being penalised for alleged ball-tampering.
Woods tragedy
Personal tragedy scarred Tiger Woods who lost his father Earl in May after a long battle with cancer and on his eventual return to competition he missed the cut at the US Open.
His consequent victory at the British Open was a testament to extraordinary willpower, technique and the ability to focus exclusively on the job at hand.
Woods concluded that the unusually hard fairways after prolonged hot weather and the profusion of bunkers demanded accuracy rather than length. Accordingly he used his driver only once in four days, winning by two strokes from Chris DiMarco and breaking down in tears after the final hole.
Even Woods, who won his 12th major with a five-shot victory at the PGA championship, could not prevent Europe beating the United States for a record third successive time in the Ryder Cup.
Michael Schumacher chose Grand Prix racing’s centennial year to announce his retirement at the age of 37 after winning the most victories, most pole positions and most points, narrowing the enjoyable if ultimately futile debate over the identity of world’s greatest athlete.
One school of thought argues that while Woods walks and Schumacher sat, Roger Federer hits a ball on the run.
Certainly the Swiss maestro would win awards for artistry, revealing an exquisite blend of power and touch to win the Australian, Wimbledon and US tennis championships.
Spaniard Rafael Nadal on a clay court at the French Open denied Federer the first grand slam since Rod Laver in 1969. – Reuters